


Promise Made (For Those Who Have Broken)

by offwhxte



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-14 23:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/offwhxte/pseuds/offwhxte
Summary: Reid is hurting inside. But so is Derek, and Derek is always, always his priority.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Lots and lots of angst in this one (with a brief mention of self harm). If these things bother you or make you uncomfortable, please click away now :) - Clem

His face crumbled like dried leaves in my hands. My hands on his shoulders were nothing but a gentle breeze to the storm brewing in his deep hazel eyes. I could hear the crackling of his heart in his chest, his heartbeat uneven like his breaths as his eyes were locked to mine with heavy, silver chains. 

I shouldn't have shown him the messages. I should have just lied. He was crying because of me—because of my stupid, stupid insecurities and my dumb lanky body and regular-mind-wanting head. I wished so badly that I was normal, or at least that I was happy with what I had become, but I was genie-less and therefore wishless. I should have told him I was fine, rather than tainting our last few moments of the night together with my selfish wishes of beauty and wanting to be _Good Enou_ _gh_ , a term I would only liken to the man who cried so selflessly in front of me.  

I'd never seen him cry like that before—raw and raspy, quiet to the ears but loud in the chest, an orchestra in our ribcages, his a bit lopsided while mine was _Trying Its Best,_ which was a close second to _Good Enough._ I was only Trying My Best because he needed me to help him. He needed me—a shirt to grasp onto, a shoulder to cry into, and a familiar deodorant to smell, and soft hair to wrap his fingers around—to be in my calmest state. If we both cried, it would be a disaster. We would have to take care of each other at the same time—and such would not work with us.  

_Us_ were complicated. _Us_ were in need of attention when we were hurting, when we were in pain. _Us_ were alike in that, when we cried, we shook like earthquakes while, in our heads, we were hurricanes, spinning and raining and spitting and fuming and making us dizzy. I would be the Calm to his Frenzy, I decided. I would be his Sunshine... and I would panic once he left for Virginia.  

"Please." I didn't like the way his lips curled around that word. Like he were going to throw up. Like the idea of me committing such a heinous crime as suicide would make him physically sick.  

I wrapped my arms around his neck and he sat down on the table so I could reach him. I fit myself in between his legs, his thighs quivering against my bony waist as he held onto me with one fist grasping the back of my shirt and the other in my hair. I rested my head on his broad, bony shoulder as he cried into my neck.  

"It's okay," I whispered into his ear, kissing the skin I could reach that wasn't covered by his shirt. "It's going to be okay." 

"No," he murmured, pushing the flat of his palm in between my plate-esque shoulder blades to pull me closer to his chest, "It's not going to be okay. It's not okay that you think that... that I..." 

"Shhhhh." I tried to fight the oncoming storm with a gentle noise, thinking that maybe he would stop crying... anything to stop his crying.  

I would have easily consoled him if it hadn't been my fault. If a friend moved away, I would have him on my hip in a heartbeat. But I was hurting in my own way—guilt that I'd made him cry, regret that I'd told him the thoughts in my head, anger at myself for being the freak I was, the pain in the crook of my elbow and the sting on my legs. I kept the pain tight in my chest, though, using it as an Ace bandage to restrict my heart so it wouldn't beat so loudly.  

Before I knew it, he was pawing at the sides of my head gently, keeping my face right against his, our noses getting well acquainted with each other as the tears rolled down his trembling cheeks. 

"Please..." He swallowed, wincing as his throat was denied any relief from the dryness of his mouth, "Please don't leave." 

_Leave,_ of course, meant _Hurt Y_ _ourself,_ or rather, _Kill Yourself_ _._ I'd lied so many times, but I knew that if I was in his shoes and he were in mine, I'd make him promise every few seconds. In fact, I'd never let him leave my arms again. 

"I won't."  

The sweat of worry covered his forehead. His eyebrows and part of his eyes were conveying some sort of emotion and it seemed as though he didn't believe me so I dragged my hand down the side of his face, holding him steady. I made him look into my eyes.  

"I would never leave you." 

He made small noises, as his confidence was shrinking in his tall body. He cooed onto my neck, sticky-sweet breath spilling over my chilled, pale skin. I couldn't bare to look into his eyes for more than a moment because, under the fluorescent light of the downstairs craft room, all I could see was my reflection. I closed my eyes.  

"Pretty boy.. I..." His voice was erratically solemn, eager to keep me in between his legs and against his chest. He was searching for words to match the pictures in his head like a baby might do in its first days of living, but much like the baby, he was unable to do so.  

"I love you," I said for him. Hotch called upstairs to tell us that the jet was ready to go.  

"I love you too." There were a few extra syllables, but I understood. "Can you promise I'll be able to text you on the way home?" 

I stood up and he did too. I brushed his shirt off and he kissed me. I felt like I was ten feet tall and ten feet taller and more and more until we pierced the clouds with our heads and the pressure of being so high in the atmosphere settled into our fragile bones as we floated down to Earth.  

"I promise you can text me on the way home," I said. We always promised in full sentences, just to make sure there were no loopholes.  

"And..." He took a step closer, ghosting his shaking fingertips over my warm cheek, "You'll respond?" 

"Of course." 

When he stepped out the door, his hoodie trailing behind him like a tattered cape with his trademark of tear stains, I whispered an apology under my breath and closed the door quietly, tipping my head back to hit the white, metal door over and over as I listened to the gravel shift under his tires as the jet engines began to sound. He was heading back to Virginia with the rest of the team, and I was going to, as I told them, "stay with my mother." 

I never _promised_ that I would respond, anyway.


End file.
